Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Cuba Has Trained 170 Doctors From the US For Free
Cuba News Agency
08 Aug 2017
🖨️ Print Article
Cuba educates medical students including those from the US for free
Cuba educates medical students from around the world, including those from the US for free.

by Cuba News Agency

Under Fidel Castro’s direction, Cuban became a “medical superpower,” setting new standards for global solidarity in the interests of human health. Cuba’s Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) has been training students from the United States to be doctors since 1999, and “has graduated more than 28,500 doctors from 103 countries, free of charge.”

Cuba Has Trained 170 Doctors From the US For Free

by Cuba News Agency

This article previously appeared in Granma.

“In my country no one helps the other student, here teachers support the preparation.”

Cuba has graduated 170 doctors from the United States through the project of the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), which was initiated by Cuban leader Fidel Castro in November 1999.
In exclusive to Cuban News Agency, Zenia Díaz Catalá, director of the general secretariat of the ELAM project, said that since the first graduation in 2005, to date, ELAM have graduated more than 28,500 doctors from 103 countries, free of charge.
Dr. David Floyd, from the 2016-2017 promotion, thanked the Cuban leadership, the Cuban people, the teachers and workers of this noble project, an example of integration between peoples for a more humane world.
“For me it has been a wonderful experience, I am impressed on the link between study and work, unlike training in the United States and other nations,” stressed the young physician.
“In Cuba we are trained by touching the patient, that was the greatest thing, the solidarity; in my country no one helps the other student, here teachers support the preparation with excellent behavior,” said Floyd, an African-American, who studied in Cuba for seven years, including the pre-doctor studies.
The doctor finished his curricula at the Salvador Allende Faculty of the University of Medical Sciences of Havana, an institution that graduated 52 foreign doctors, 25 of them from the United States, Dr. Suiberto EchavarrĂ­a, dean of that institution, said.
David Floyd, the father of the recent graduate, conveyed his eternal gratitude and said he was very impressed, pleased and honored because his son is a doctor trained in Cuba under ethical and moral principles, with a humanist conception.
Diaz Catalá explained that currently the ELAM project has a enrollment of 4,969 students from 112 nations in the 21 faculties of the country's medical science universities, of which 83 are from the United States.

Cuba
socialism

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
In the same boat?
09 September 2026
BOOM goes tuna and swordfish stuffed brown burlap bags aboardboats blown to smithereens. Presto! Fishing is now narco-trafficking.
Imani Nile
Don't Bring None of Your Anti Anti-Imperialist Bullshit to Cuba
09 September 2026
Empire taught us what to believe about the Global South.
Logan McMillen
After Blocking Fuel, the US Turns to Cuba’s Food Supply
09 September 2026
The Trump administration has already cut off Cuba’s access to oil.
Luciano Vasapollo
Cuba Stands Firm, Venezuela Risks Losing its Sovereignty
09 September 2026
Cuba's leadership has chosen resistance over subordination as the blockade tightens, but Venezuela's sovereignty is being stripped away.
Black Alliance For Peace
Declaration of a Zone of Peace
26 August 2026
From the blockade of Cuba to the kidnapping of Venezuela's president, U.S.
Luis Britto GarcĂ­a
Venezuela Is Not Iran
19 August 2026
Venezuela is not Iran or Cuba, but those nations teach us that sovereignty is not given but is obtained through resistance.
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Venezuela, Memory, and the Long Arc of U.S. Imperialism
29 July 2026
Memories of a sovereign Venezuela collide with the reality that it is now a U.S. vassal state.
Sharon Kyle
Cuba Is Being Punished for Refusing Dependency
29 July 2026
Baba Akili and Thandiwe Abdullah returned from Havana with an eyewitness account of empty streets, failing hospitals and a people enduring the
Sara Flounders
U.S. Government Terrorists Weaponize Subpoenas vs. the Left
29 July 2026
The House Ways and Means subpoenas against peace and justice organizations, paired with the State Department's designation of Cuba as the cente
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
INTERVIEW: How the Cuban Revolution was Made, Fidel Castro, 1979
22 July 2026
“In other words, people revolted against the system. But they did not know that the system was called capitalism.”

More Stories


  • Zimbabwe protest
    Netfa Freeman
    U.S. Imperialism Raising Its Ugly Arrogance Again in Zimbabwe
    20 Mar 2024
    The U.S. is once again using sanctions as a means to prevent the economic development of Zimbabwe, a long used tactic in the neoliberal imperialist playbook.
  • Tchadenksy Jean Baptiste
    Danny Shaw
    A Portrait of Love in a City at War: Who Assassinated Haitian Community Leader Tchadenksy Jean Baptiste?
    20 Mar 2024
    One year since the murder of community leader and poet Tchadenksy Jean Baptiste, his dedication and love for his nation and his people lives on.
  • Zone of Peace
    Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team
    Black Alliance for Peace Calls for the Respect of Haitian Popular Sovereignty and an End to Western Imperialist Intervention
    20 Mar 2024
    A Zone of Peace Campaign Statement in Solidarity with the Haitian People.
  • Chris Hedges
    Israel’s Trojan Horse
    20 Mar 2024
    The “temporary pier” being built on the Mediterranean coast of Gaza is not there to alleviate the famine, but to herd Palestinians onto ships and into permanent exile.
  • UN soldiers in Haiti
    Leandro Melito , Ana Paula Rocha
    'Haiti should be compensated for the destruction caused by the UN military mission,' says historian
    20 Mar 2024
    Historian said to Brasil de Fato that armed groups are the heirs to the repression of US-backed dictatorships
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us